AP, May 21, 2014: Los Alamos National Laboratory [LANL] on Wednesday told state government it has isolated and is closely monitoring nuclear waste [...] packed with a type of cat litter suspected in a radiation leak at [WIPP]. [LANL] said the 55-gallon barrels have been secured in special containers and moved to an isolated area with a fire protection system. They also are being monitored 24 hours a day for any change in temperature, smoking or other abnormalities. [...] More than 100 other suspect containers are being stored temporarily at Waste Control Specialists in Andrews, Texas.

AP, May 23, 2014: Has cat litter turned barrels of New Mexico nuclear waste into ticking time bombs? [...] COULD THE OTHER BARRELS BE TICKING TIME BOMBS? [LANL] said it has packed them in special containers, placed them under a dome with a fire extinguishing system and is closely monitoring them. Waste Control Specialists has taken similar precautions. As for the more than 350 containers already at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, Flynn has ordered the U.S. Department of Energy to expedite plans for sealing off the underground rooms where the waste is stored. Complicating that effort is the laborious investigative process [...] they are still working to see if other containers have been breached.

At :15 in — Arnie Gundersen, Fairewinds Chief Engineer: Barrels are above ground and still at Los Alamos, which is a major concern because this material gets more and more unstable as it gets warmer, and of course we’re heading into the summer months on the desert. So those barrels that are above ground, if they were to blow like the one that did below ground, we’d have a serious public health effect. [...]

At 1:30 in – Gundersen: When the corn [in the kitty litter] absorbed the moisture, the nitrogen inside got very, very volatile. Almost like in these old movies when you see somebody holding nitroglycerin — any shake will cause it to be disturbed. Well that’s what happened to these canisters that have the organic kitty litter. They’ve got to go back through and find all of those and isolate them and then figure out how to change the litter.

Well look on the bright side…if they seal and it turns into a water-soaked morass of drums and corroded drums, it probably won't blow up. But it will find egress over centuries to local underground water aquifers.

I remember when I was a kid I went to a nuclear trade show with booths and displays. One display on the floor had hundreds and hundreds of loaded mouse traps side by side. Each mouse trap had a ping pong ball on top of the bar. The host tossed a ping pong ball into the display and swoosh all the balls flew up into the air. The host said this demonstrates nuclear fission. I never forgot that. Multiply that millions of times. I'm not sure how the nuclear technicians ever thought they could control such an event.

What's in the drums? The town hall meeting got told all about the nitrates in the drums, but what about the plutonium and it's cousins? We (think) we know it's transuranic waste, but is this stuff in these drums hotter than anything at Hanford, i.e., the hottest nuclear waste known to man? Is this seven Curies per liter stuff? Was it in liquid form, with the kitty litter acting as an absorbent? Are they allowed to put the kind of stuff that is in the Hanford tanks into WIPP? Why is nobody talking about HOW MUCH PLUTONIUM is in each 45 gallon drum? It's not just gloves and overalls, is it?

Every post you make , I promise to poster ten notices boards with FuQshima facts and figures and a link to the only site reporting newsworthy items – ENENEWS.
So post your dating crap some more sadass.

I read that whole testimony link.1999. Every single thing that happened at WIPP was right there, right there, right there.

The DOE does not rule out the possibility of dissolution.

Its like, someone is dead, rotting and stinking: The DOE rep stamnds right there next to the body. The DOE does not rule out the possibility that someone might not be in tip top health….
We are such a stupid race of beings, en mass….

"Virtually all scientists who have examined this area recognize the extensive character of dissolution in the Rustler Formation at the WIPP site. The work of two DOE scientists does not "largely rule out this explanation," as contended by the DOE."

"The 6 Culebra test wells are located randomly, in a hexagonal [6-sided] array, surrounding the WIPP repository. The 6 monitoring wells, some of them hydraulically upgradient from the WIPP site, might be considered insufficient for an ordinary landfill and are surely insufficient for our nation's defense transuranic waste dump."

Let's see.
They don't know how to remove the involved drums.
If a drum should begin to become chemically active.. are they going to try and remove it ..or just let it explode.
And what if something goes wrong with the removal?
If left in the DUMP ..are the workers to return ..and just assume they will ..may/somewhat/somehow survive another incident?
What about the safety conditions of the workers?

"In their response on 21 May, the LANL and the DOE said that the drums were being transferred to a tent fitted with fire-control and high-efficiency particulate air filtration to contain any radioactive particles in the event of an accident. They added that air radiation levels and the temperature of the drums were being monitored, and that the drums were being inspected hourly for signs of rupture."

A tent ..with particulate air filtration.
Wow ..a whole mine's worth of particulate filtration ..didn't hold the emissions from the EXPLOSION.
..
Monitoring hourly for signs of rupture?
Then what??..run over the hill with it??

A tent to hold.. the shock of an explosion.
What did they use.. the sarong of 'The Colossus Man'?

"The emails trace LANL’s approval of two products requested by contractor EnergySolutions, which packages LANL waste, to neutralize the pH balance of drum contents sent to WIPP.

The products contain organic ingredients known to be incompatible with the nitrate salts present in the LANL waste containers – “a bad combination,” according to Cole Smith, a chemist in NMED’s Hazardous Waste Bureau.

EnergySolutions asked LANL managers for approval in a May 2013 email to switch to one of the products. LANL approved the change a month later – despite product warnings clearly stating that the product is incompatible with metallic nitrates and “strong oxidizers,” such as nitrate salts, both of which are found in the LANL drums.
Nitrates and organic matter are known to oxidize, a reaction that generates heat.

The other product mentioned in an email was a new liquid to neutralize acids and bases in the drums. When Zeke Wilmot, EnergySolutions industrial hygienist, asked in an August 2013 email for approval to use the product, he notes that “criticality safety issues are not my area of expertise” and “it may be advisable to have LANL personnel weigh in on these issues as well.”

A subcontract technical representative for LANL environmental programs responded to Wilmot and approved the change in a September 2013 email copied to eight other people. The approved product also contains an organic ingredient."

"The other product mentioned in an email was a new liquid to neutralize acids and bases in the drums. When Zeke Wilmot, EnergySolutions industrial hygienist, asked in an August 2013 email for approval to use the product, he notes that “criticality safety issues are not my area of expertise” and “it may be advisable to have LANL personnel weigh in on these issues as well.”

A subcontract technical representative for LANL environmental programs responded to Wilmot and approved the change in a September 2013 email copied to eight other people. The approved product also contains an organic ingredient."

(cont.)
"The emails also don’t say what kind of testing may or may not have been done at LANL before the products were approved, said Don Hancock of the Southwest Research and Information Center, a WIPP watchdog.

“There is no way anyone can make a big change without it going through a lot of people,” Hancock said. “There are multiple people who were aware of this in 2013.”

(cont.)
"EnergySolutions asked LANL managers for approval in a May 2013 email to switch to one of the products. LANL approved the change a month later – despite product warnings clearly stating that the incompatible with metallic nitrates and “strong oxidizers,” such as nitrate salts, both of which are found in the LANL drums."

Hold onto yourselves people. These cowboys make huge chemical engineering decisions by email. by EMAIL!! who wrote the email who asked, who approved it. Now we watch them try to minimize it. Well temps are climbing. We here in NM are very nervous about fires. Its tinder box dry. Rows of browned burned conifers along I-25 that people shrug off as drought (not) OVER 500 drums of this stuff.

What on earth are they gonna say at the Town Hall. Hope the Mayer is still feeling all warm and fuzzy. THIS IS A NUCLEAR CRIME> these people are the terrorists. GET IT!? They are the people that wield the terror and make the poison bombs after their consultations with their gods. Then they have the nerve to play on people's desire to be civil and nice so they can manipulate the perceptions of what they are doing. Its time for them to start digging in granite. NO instead we get told that the "dome" technology is suddenly ok?? Well if its so ok,then why is it not permanent. Build a fire proof dome around the dome? Oh wait that is less $$$$ on permanently storing the barrels- big money in passing them around.

Also,note the deadline for a plan is due to the State of New Mexico..today, May 30th, 2014. Silence is deafing!
"New Mexico Environment Department in Santa Fe issued an order on May 20, 2014 giving the US Department of Energy and the Nuclear Waste Partnership — the contractor that operates the WIPP site — until May 30, 2014 to come up with a plan to “expedite” the sealing of panel 6 and part of panel 7."

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